Modern medical care often involves the use of electronic medical devices such as medication delivery pumps and/or patient condition monitors. Electronic medical pumps, for example, can be electronically loaded or configured with a customizable “drug library” containing certain drug delivery information or parameters, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,681,285 and 6,269,340. Medication management systems for configuring, controlling, and monitoring medication delivery devices have been disclosed. For example, commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/930,358, which published as US20050144043A1 on Jun. 30, 2005 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/783,573, which published as US20050278194A1 on Dec. 15, 2005, disclose a medication management system in which a user-customizable drug library or medical device configuration information is prepared using a drug library editor (DLE) program and module of a medication management unit (MMU). The MMU downloads the customizable drug library to the medication delivery pump and receives status or activity information from the pump. Commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/783,877, which also published as WO2005050526A2 on Jun. 2, 2005, discloses how the drug library or medical device configuration information is created, edited, stored and communicated to a medication delivery device in the context of a medication management system to deliver substances, such as fluids and/or fluid medication to patients. According to the above-mentioned commonly owned published patent applications, a typical medication management system includes a MMU in communication with one or more medication delivery devices. The MMU is a computer, typically a server, with an associated memory that stores the customized drug library or information for configuring the medication delivery devices and the activity information received from the medication delivery devices.
In the past, the activity and configuration information collected by an individual medication management system was stored in one or more computers at each individual institution and/or facility or in one or more computers set up by the vendor of the system. Other institutions or facilities did not have access to the activity and configuration information for comparison or other purposes.
One of the more difficult and time-consuming tasks for a medical institution to accomplish in order to implement a medication management system is the development of a customized drug library or set of medical device configuration information. Vendors of medication management systems or medical devices are typically not permitted to practice medicine and can only make recommendations that authorized medical personnel at the individual medical institution must review, modify if necessary and approve. Furthermore, medical institutions usually want to customize their drug library or medical device configuration information to best suit the particular needs, medical judgments and practices of their institution. However, the process of developing and approving a drug library or medical device configuration information for an institution can take months and often involves medical personnel from many areas of the institution. To facilitate and expedite the creation, development, and continued maintenance of a drug library or medical device configuration information, a need exists for institutions to understand and compare how other institutions have organized their customized medical device configuration information and what specific values they have used for various parameters or variables, both before and after an institution has installed and implemented a medication management system.
Another difficult task is evaluating the enormous amount of activity information that a medical device management system or medication management system generates. With existing medical device management systems or medication management systems, various reports can be generated by the system to allow the medical institution and/or facility to track various measures. However, it is often hard to draw meaningful conclusions about the data or the reports in the abstract. A need exists to allow an individual medical institution and/or facility to compare their activity information to the activity information of other institutions and/or facilities.
Knowledge in the area of medicine and delivery of medication is not static; it is dynamic and constantly evolving. There is a demand to make continuing improvements in the areas of patient safety, caregiver productivity, and standards of care. Thus, there is a need to have medical device configuration and activity information that is dynamic, up-to-date and based on actual recent experience in medical institutions. It is also desirable for medical institutions and/or facilities to be able to consider what their peers, based on one or more similarity or level of performance factors, are doing relative to medical device configuration and activity information.
One objective of the present invention is the provision of a method and system for aggregating medical device configuration information from multiple medical institutions and/or facilities for the purposes of benchmarking and drug library or medical device configuration information development.
A further objective of the present invention is the provision of a method and system for aggregating medical device activity information generated by one or more medical device management systems at multiple medical institutions and/or facilities for benchmarking or other purposes.
A further objective of the present invention is the provision of medical device configuration and activity information that is dynamic, up-to-date and based on actual recent experience in medical institutions.
A further objective of the present invention is the provision of a method and system that allows medical institutions and/or facilities to select a peer group whose recent medical device configuration and activity information is of interest to them.
A further object of the present invention is the provision of a system and method for being able to remotely develop and/or create configuration libraries, in particular when an institution/facility has purchased a medication delivery system, but the medication delivery system, or portions thereof, has not been installed yet or the installation has not yet been completed.
The present invention is provided to solve the problems discussed above and, to provide advantages and aspects not provided by prior medical pumps, as well as achieve other objects not explicitly stated above. A full discussion of the features, advantages and objects of the present invention is deferred to the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.